Excerpt: The Bad Poets' Society

Every writer dreams of opening his or her memoir with a snazzy first line like “Call me Ishmael.” Or, perhaps to drop a bombshell like, “It was a fine, crisp, December morning the day that I died.” The former won’t work, because my name isn’t Ishmael, and to quote Monty Python, “I’m not dead yet.” I don’t suppose that a thousand monkeys working typewriters with all fours could come up with a poetic turn of phrase to describe where I found myself that cold August morning that changed my life.
There is nothing poetic about standing in line.
Now, I’m not saying great things can’t happen while you’re standing in line, waiting for something to happen. I’m not saying no one’s ever met their future spouse or the President of the United States while waiting in a queue of incoming freshmen to sign college documents, but the chances of that are slim.
The Eisenhower Campus Center is particularly set up to enhance the torture of waiting by its genius engineering. It sees plenty of queue traffic on a daily basis. There’s the lunch line—a particularly pungent experience, as the odor of fried chicken and scallions wafts over the heads of those waiting to enter. Then there’s the mandatory chapel line, in which all clocks are positioned to face the waiters who snap their fingers and tap their toes, hoping to squeeze in past the quarter-hour mark when the doors shut.
Then there’s the line for the bookstore, the free chocolate chip cookie samples line (usually a dietetics major project), the line to buy tickets for a Nickel Creek concert… the line to get into the Nickel Creek concert… you get the idea.
Local engineering majors estimate that the average Messiah student spends 7.5% of his or her course of study waiting in line. Psychology majors are still working out what effect that has on community mental health and whether the number of visits to the counseling center could be decreased through better staffing.
The line I found myself in that day was a combination of all the above factors. Besides being hot, and wanting pulled pork and corn on the cob, I found myself caught up in a crowd of incoming freshmen corralled into the shape of a small intestines, backed up against numbered tables that vaguely resembled the stations of the cross to sign W-2 forms, get printed ID cards, enroll in tuition payment plans and meal plans, sign housing contracts, and be reminded that in four years I will have to start paying off all this debt I’m racking up as a student. My feet itch, and I am perpetually standing on some girl’s toe.
“And then I hear this British accent saying, ‘Bloody Americans—don’t know how to queue!’ Oh. Don’t worry about it—people step on me all the time. Comes of being short. Like I was saying…”
To make matters worse, my dad wants to flash everyone with his new digital camera. I beg him to put it away, because we’re not in Bermuda, and I don’t want to look like a tourist.
“Don’t you want to remember your first day at college?”
I do, but not as a case of severe parental embarrassment.
There would be one thing worse than not making friends on this day. That would be having my future friends remember me as a freak of nature under photographic surveillance.
I spent most of this morning trying to come up with “conversation starters” for my new peers. I figure the best way to get people to like me is to be genuinely interested in them. My best one goes something like this:
“Hi, my name’s Sara… so, what is the meaning of life to you?”
I quickly gave that one up as too broad and vague. Plus, I imagined asking that to someone, and I got all tongue-tied. So here’s what I narrowed it down to.

What’s your name?
Have you picked a major yet? And…
What do you see as the most important thing in your life right now?

I still have this bad feeling it’s not going to work.
I am dressed too warmly. My baggy, white polo shirt tucked into the waist of my size-6 tapered jeans, makes me feel like a sausage. These pants are still too tight. I’m beginning to wish I hadn’t bought them.

A tap on the shoulder startles me. I look up to see a girl staring at me. She has blonde hair.
“You went to Summit!”
She indicates my shirt with her coffee stirrer. A fleck of creamer dangles in mid-air and lands unnoticed on the gold-colored embroidery.
“As a matter of fact, I did,” I say with a smile. I catch myself just as she’s starting to look bored and turn away. “What’s your name?” I ask.
“Christine. What major are you?”
I smile. “Biology. Pre-med.”
“Whoa. You must be like, really smart or something.” She turns red and starts to giggle like a hockey mom on a game show.
It is my turn to go red. “Not really. I just… study.” I add quickly, “I was home-schooled, so that helps.”
“Aren’t home-schooled people, like, totally antisocial or something?”
I shook my head. Actually, that’s a common stereotype. Home schoolers have as many social opportunities as traditional students. They just don’t… always work out the way we hope they would.
I don’t feel like trying to explain this to her, so I switch the topic of conversation to herself. I would like to know all about her, including why she chose a major of Communications… information which I will forget seconds later. Christine disappears into the crowd, and I never see her again. I wish her well.
My mother beams.
“You talked!”
I shrink into my turtleneck and hope nobody heard that.
“I always talk,” I say.